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Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Review: Split Second

Bound together by the
devastating consequences of a terrorist attack on a London market,
teenagers Charlotte (Charlie) and Nat appear at first to have much in
common. But, as Charlie gets closer to Nat and his family, she begins to
wonder if perhaps he knows more about the attack than he has let on.

I buddy read this with Georgia, and there are so many words to describe this book; powerful, heart-breaking, thought-provoking. A beautiful thriller with an added romance. I was hooked from the fast-paced prologue that introduced characters and was full of action.

I loved the characters. Charlie, though she annoyed me to begin with, was misunderstood by her family (and me, for a while!) and as she developed she became a beautiful character I could definitely relate to. And Nat... Nat had flaws, but they made him all the more flawless. His honour and his jealously that he had of his brother merged together and had many effects in his character.

There was so much empathy I could feel for the characters. McKenzie develops both them and the plot so well that it can't stop your heart from melting at points but beat at a mile a minute at others. Racism and war were also represented so accurately it made everything in me hurt.

"The girl and her mother. The blood and

the smell of fear in the air...."

"Maybe the question I should really be asking was:

when there were established political parties to act through...

what was I doing in the middle of nowhere?"

Throughout buddy reading this with Georgia, we had some interesting, shall we say, conversations, debates, live-tweet sessions and freak-outs! The book kept me up at night trying to figure out the mystery, and it has to be said, our ideas where extremely wrong! As you can tell from these messages, it has been extremely hard to keep this review from becoming a big mess of frustrations, emotions and capital letters! I've tried extremely hard to stay professional...

Left to right: Random bits of discussion; wanting the sequel now; so much emotion!

Overall, this is a heart-stopping book with a beautiful romance, unforeseeable mystery and amazing plot. The sequel needs to come sooner because we need to know what happens next, especially with that ending!

I think anyone who loves a thriller with a bit of romance will love this book.